


Emotions

by orphan_account



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Drabble Collection, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-17
Updated: 2013-03-23
Packaged: 2017-12-05 14:07:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/724149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She had found something besides war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> drabbles that i'll also be putting up on my [secondary blog](http://vhenan.tumblr.com/).

**i. _pain_.**

He says it unthinkingly— _look elsewhere_ —she lingers in his room far too long for his own liking and he has no interest in attachments. He expects her to fumble with her words like she does when the asari makes advances; he does not expect her eyes to narrow at him or the effortless shift of amusement to anger. Her knuckles hit just below his chin, but it is not the physical blow that staggers him. It's the emotion—the sharp, screaming anger that bubbles just beneath her skin, the snap of desperation. The loneliness. A fleeting glimpse of her bondmate dying in a hospital bed. She breathes in sharply— _what did she see_ —and leaves. Quietly, with her posture rigid and movements stiff; but, her anger lingers. It festers and stands stark, bold, and undeniable against the soft, warm curls of fog. Glimpses of her seem to crawl beneath his skin and burrow deep in his bones. Her memories, edged with grief and longing and doubt, flash before him—too fast to comprehend everything but too slow for him to feel comfortable with the exchange. Even the brief swells of emotion and momentary fever bright memories are too intimate. And, as she fades from the front of his mind, settles quietly enough that he can push her away, he finds he understands her.

  
  


**ii. _jealousy_.**

Now that he looks, he sees her. She lingered here often—happy to take what she could for however long she could. How he did not see her before is puzzling. He can almost picture a hazy, quiet smile. The drell was important to her. A bondmate. She must have known about the illness, the numbered days that he was promised to breathe. Yet. She is present in almost every corner of the room. A soft, almost invisible hum of contentment to edge the grief and pain from the drell. Against all logic, she had found a place here. Alongside a man who was condemned from the moment she met him. There is love. Love and warmth and safety. It's amusing, he decides, that _she_ —a soldier who has been forged by war and death and sacrifice and forced into the mold of a savior—found peace. He runs his fingers over the edge of the room's only table. _She_ had found something besides war. The drell's name is already among the dead. He wonders if her hollow gaze and the scars along her cheek are a proof of emptiness; and would it be wrong for him to hope for someone else to understand _exactly_ what that cold, sharp-edged loneliness feels like?


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Her words are barely loud enough to be heard over the music and laughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some vague spoilers for citadel dlc. also, I cannot seem to get Javik's voice down.

**iii. _loneliness_.**

Her kiss is more bite—more prothean—than she realizes; and, he doesn't need to sift through her mind to know that the sharpness is less to do with the alcohol he can taste on her tongue and more to do with the reason that she won't look at him. It's a reason that she betrays in the way her fingers continue to press over the frills of his neck and the way her lips twist into half a snarl, half a sob against his. Most of all, it's her sudden exhalation of a dead man's name that echoes with such longing that it feels stark and cold against the careless, loose warmth that made it so easy for her to smile and draw him close. Her gaze is bright and wet when he opens his eyes. She's already recoiling, ready to strike at the slightest move he makes. He flexes his fingers against the bared skin of her hip and he feels her nails scratching against the back of his neck in response.

The music the turian and quarian argued over is still echoing through the house and her crew with their voices high and cracking from alcohol are still in the rooms below.

 _I should go_ , she says.

Her words are barely loud enough to be heard over the music and laughter; and, her voice sounds nothing like the false commander she threw off the edge of her ship. There's a lifetime's worth of pain cracking the words that could never be replicated—he pushes away the sudden but vague thought that reminds him that he too knows that pain intimately. She moves stiffly when she yanks herself away from his open hands. He only blinks when she looks at him over her shoulder. He finds himself almost disappointed to watch her walk away. But, he suspects that it is the effect of the alcohol the krogan offered him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the crew turns away to welcome the human doctor to the table, he sees it: A minute glance of the fear and exhaustion that shadows her face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> briefly mentioned spoilers for Priority: Citadel and Priority: Rannoch. I am still having trouble with Javik's voice. One day I'll get it down.

She stinks of grief and Rannoch’s warm sands. Even when she makes her appearance in the mess, with a brittle smile and a breathless laugh, she slouches into her chair and grips her glass of water too tightly. She jokes with the other humans, insults the turian, and briefly reaches out for the quarian’s hand. He easily sees the hollowness in her eyes. She has lost another dear to her — a machine’s name placed on the memorial wall along with humans and other primitives who have lived and breathed. The traitor earns his place among the lists of the dead more than the machine; but, each of the crew spares a fond touch to the machine’s name as much as the dead human and drell. They speak fondly of the machine as they pass plates of food to each other.

 

The Commander only stares into her drink. She makes no correction in the stories and does not nudge the turian beside her or raise her eyebrows when the quarian chirps out vague references to primitive vids. And, when the crew turns away to welcome the human doctor to the table, he sees it: A minute glance of the fear and exhaustion that shadows her face, a deep-lingering doubt that makes her dark skin seem paler than it is, and behind her half-lidded eyes there is a distance that makes the slackness of her jaw almost alarming.

 

It takes no more than two minutes for her to catch his stare.

 

She purses her lip and narrows her eyes.

 

He stares back.

 

She is the one who holds the weight of an entire galaxy upon her shoulders. She is the woman who has stared down krogan and slammed corrupted creatures into walls with a flare of biotics and the deafening blast of a shotgun. She is the human who helped end the geth rebellion with four well-aimed shots of a pistol that looked too small in her hands.

 

The Commander looks away quickly when the quarian touches her shoulder. From where he stands at the far end of the mess hall, he can see that her eyes soft around the edges and her false smile is ebbing into something subtler and genuine. Even now, he thinks, she does not understand. Her crew laughs—sharp and sudden in the somber air that chokes the ship—and it is then that he knows that she will never understand.

 

She will hold those closest to her an arms length away, she will blink away tears when she places a bullet between the eyes—in the very heart—of those she deems dearest to her for a cause she grows weary of, and her shoulders will remain steady, her hands will not waver. But, this—the laughter, the easy touches, the fond and gentle smile she reserves only for those she’s known for years will kill her as surely as any reaper.


End file.
